Creative businesses thrive in Savannah

BiS Connect

Love Lane Designs creates unique home goods, specializing in hand-printed tea towels. These aren’t just any old tea towels. They are decorative pieces of artwork filled with bright colors and quirky designs that can hang in the kitchen with pride.

“The tea towels have a fun, vintage feel to them and a sense of humor,” said Lane Huerta, owner of the Savannah-based business.

Huerta works out of her studio and showroom, Swamp Kitty, which is located in the Starland District. She doesn’t have a traditional storefront, so part of her business plan includes discovering boutiques and online outlets where she can sell her creations.

Times have changed since the days of the brick and mortar general stores where goods were only available for purchase within those four walls.

Many modern, creative businesses are operating through a haven of social media, online stores and boutiques to sell their goods both locally and worldwide.

Savannah is a thriving community for these creative businesses. They’re not only able to sell their goods locally, but they can also be headquartered here and sell worldwide through online stores.

Love Lane Designs

Love Lane Designs has been featured everywhere from Southern Living to right here in Savannah at places like 24e and Back in the Day Bakery.

Originally from North Carolina, Huerta’s passion for screen printing began while she was living in California and observing an artist there.

“I love tea towels. I wanted to create my own images on them. That’s how it all came about, from the passion, and it turned into a business,” Huerta said.

Self-taught, Huerta established Love Lane Designs in 2008. Along with her decorative tea towels, she primarily creates pillows, as well as custom work for weddings. She’s also developing a whimsical children’s collection inspired by her 1-year-old daughter, Clementine.

Without a storefront, working from her studio and showroom makes things more complicated when it comes to selling her goods. However, like most artists, Huerta has discovered ways of getting Love Lane Designs out in the world and noticed.

“If you can be creative and think outside the box, there’s less stress and less overhead in not having a storefront. I think it’s easier, especially with social media and friends who have boutiques,” she said.

Huerta utilizes social media to promote her work and keep in touch with faithful fans. She can sell her items online through stores like Etsy and attract customers in that way.

Huerta believes Savannah is a city that’s accommodating to creative businesses such as her own.

“It’s a good place to have roots and live without the crazy overhead of somewhere like New York or San Francisco. There are so many people who support the arts here,” she said.

PanhandleGirl

Originally from northern Florida, Saja Aures created PanhandleGirl in 2002 while living in California. She produces soap that’s eco-friendly, cold process and all-natural, made with essential oils, clays and botanicals.

Aures operated the business full time until 2006, when she shifted her career focus. Since then she’s continued PanhandleGirl as a micro-business and creative outlet.

She doesn’t have a storefront, but her business is based in Savannah, with products available for purchase online.

“When I operated full time, I did work up a pretty strong wholesale business. As it’s now a hobby business, I focus primarily on retail through the Web,” Aures said.

She is able to use her website, PanhandleGirl.com, as well as Etsy, to sell soap.

“Etsy is great for indie businesses because there’s barely any cost to get started. You don’t need to know anything about websites or e-commerce. It’s very accessible, so it’s incredibly diverse,” she said.

Aures uses Etsy as a complement to PanhandleGirl.com because of the community aspect of it and because she enjoys shopping there as a consumer.

To promote her soaps, Aures utilizes the power of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

“Social media has metrics that traditional advertising just doesn’t offer. So I have a much better idea of how many people I’m reaching, what sort of impact the social media campaigns have,” she said. “Social media for business is really about being where your customers are, instead of the traditional model of trying to figure out how to bring customers to your business.”

Aures hopes to see more local, creative businesses find support, even in a market closer to home.

“I would like see the whole ‘buy local’ movement really embrace micro-business. I’d like to see more opportunities for micro-business owners to find local niches without having to have traditional storefronts,” she said.

Chocolate Lab

Kelly Spivey is the pastry chef at Foxy Loxy café in Savannah. She makes the café’s addictive selection of sweet desserts, such as the chocolaty Bourbon Bacon Brownie.

After exploring her love of all things chocolate, she decided to start up a side business of her own, the Chocolate Lab, which produces hand-crafted southern artisan candy bars.

“I have a strong interest in chocolate. I’m interested in how it’s made and how the cocoa beans are grown,” Spivey said.

As a chocolatier, she creates the bars from high quality, American-made chocolates and utilizes local, southern ingredients. She uses toasted Georgia pecans and honey from Savannah Bee Company. She also uses ingredients from Southern Swiss Dairy, Perc coffee roasters and Hunter Cattle.

Her business is still in the research and development process but will soon be releasing its chocolate bars for sale online and in local stores.

“I’m getting a Kickstarter to raise funds and get equipment I need for the Chocolate Lab,” she said.

She uses social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about the Chocolate Lab and various chocolate tastings she hosts at Foxy Loxy.

“It’s definitely a learning experience managing the social media,” she said. “I probably get on it and try to post every day … I like to share things I’m doing with the business. I think social media is good for providing sneak peeks and getting people interested.”

Still in the beginning stages of having her own business, Spivey decided early on that she wanted to build the business and become more stable before seeking out a storefront.

“Especially in this economic climate, I think it’s good to establish yourself to having that commitment before having a brick and mortar business and having that overhead,” she said. “There’s a lot you can do before taking that leap. My goal is to have it available locally, and it will be online if people want to purchase it there. Especially as a food business just starting out, I’d rather hedge my bets and do what’s smarter for me, which is starting out smaller and selling it locally and online.”